Part 1: Day 12, 6 June 2018 –Booneville KY to Berea KY, 62 mi, 3371 ft ascent, 11.0% max grade, 11.2 mph avg.


I had another close call with dogs today.  I was coming down a gradual decline out of a wooded area and into an area of open fields. The road curved gently to the right as it entered the fields and there was a house on the left just beyond the trees and offset pretty far back from the road.  I saw two large black dogs behind the house, and they saw me.  They started a full spring towards the road as I started my spring to outpace them.  They were smart and set their course to intercept a couple hundred yards down the road.  At this point I had reached full speed, and yet they were gaining on me!  I was amazed at their speed and endurance.  I narrowly outran them.  I will never know if they were type 2 or 3.   Today I kept count of how many loose dogs gave chase and by 9:00 am there were 17!  The final tally for the day was 22.  This was only the ones that gave chase; it does not include all the loose dogs that didn’t pay us any mind, or the Type 1 that were just curious.   I don’t know how many of those were Type 3 junkyard dogs because we were able to outrun all of them and you can’t tell how serious they are until you get pretty close to them.  Once we reached Berea, we headed North up to the town of Richmond where I had arranged for Mike’s Bike and Hike to box and ship my bike home.  The road up to Richmond was terrible!  It had a lot of traffic and no real shoulder.  Note to self, don’t ride back down that road next year.  Steve H’s wife June met us in Richmond and drove Steve and I back to his home in Lexington.  That night we watched the movie “Triplets of Belleville”, which is a very creative animated French movie about bicycle racing.  The next day Steve took a day off to drive me to the airport in Louisville KY.  I really appreciated meeting Steve’s family and their hospitality.  Rob took a day to spend with friends in Berea.  After a rest day they both continued on with their westward TransAm journey, which I experienced vicariously through their blogs.

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